HUGH HEWITT: The GOP is wounded, not dead — but recovery has to start now
The GOP isn’t dead, but it sure does look and feel that way in the harsh light of the day after Tuesday’s walloping.
The myth of Rasputin is that a Russian monk who pretended to mysticism was poisoned, stabbed, shot, beaten and thrown in a river. He somehow climbed out of the drink and survived. He didn’t.
Miraculous recoveries only happen in the movies, as with "Boris the Bullet Dodger" in Guy Ritchie’s beloved "Snatch", which starred Jason Statham, Brad Pitt, Benicio del Toro, and Dennis Farina.
If you are a Republican feeling low after Tuesday night’s nationwide wipeout, "Snatch" is a good viewing choice. If you or your boss lost, you need to have a laugh because there is no crying in baseball or politics. Wipeouts happen, and the GOP isn’t going to suddenly pull itself beaten and bruised out of the Potomac.
But, the Republican Party isn’t dead. It’s just beaten badly, and it will take some years to mend. A lesson from the endless rebuild of the Cleveland Browns: There aren’t any shortcuts. You need patience, and you have to build through the draft.
THUNE PLANS TO RUN FOR REPUBLICAN MINORITY LEADER AFTER DEMS' MIDTERM TAKEOVER
The good news: There’s a best player or ten within every state's political leadership, and it’s up to Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno to cheer up the Senate caucus and get to work recruiting and fielding a team of GOP Senate candidates for 2028. The same must go on within the much smaller House GOP conference.
It’s up to President Trump to make sure the Republican National Committee, in turn, makes sure that the process of selecting his successor nominee is wide-open and robust. Debates between would-be nominees beginning early in 2027 for an Iowa primary in January 2028, with a New Hampshire primary right behind it will be an excellent forum from which many would-be presidents can test messages and themes with the country as a whole.
LIZ PEEK: THERE MAY BE A SILVER LINING IN TRUMP'S BRUTAL MIDTERM DEFEAT
President Trump remains the leader of a badly banged-up party, and he’s often been a terrific cheerleader and needs to be so again.
Not like the "Black Knight" in 1975’s "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" — Tuesday night wasn’t a flesh wound. President Trump will study the ugly results carefully. Disasters have their own clarity about them. No need for an autopsy when the cause of death is, well, everything. President Trump’s State of the Union early in 2027 will provide an agenda around which would-be leaders-in-waiting can rally or reject. He and his team should start to work on that immediately. It will matter a great deal.
The greatness of the Republic is its wonderful resilience. The Constitution is terrifically strong, a work of genius that endures. Parties thought dead beyond recovery indeed do come back. That lesson is not ancient history. No need to recall the eclipse of the GOP after Barry Goldwater’s kamikaze presidential run in 1964, which left the GOP with just 32 senators and 140 members in the House. Really.
Republicans under President Reagan lost the Senate majority in 1986 and tumbled to 45 seats. It took eight years to climb back to a majority in the Upper Chamber.
The GOP lost that Senate majority again in 2006 and their hole got deeper during the financial crisis in 2008-2008. When President Obama soared to his landslide and was sworn in in 2009, there were only 41 Republican senators in attendance and 178 GOP House members.
The silver lining — and it is going to need some polishing to gleam — is that the center-right and conservatives have three cycles before the post-2030 Census national redistricting gets underway. If the ongoing counting of election results in the states brings the worst, Democrats will have "trifectas"— where a party controls the governorship and both houses of the legislature— in 21 states, the GOP will have 19, and 10 will enjoy divided government. Expect redrawing of maps in the 40 states with trifectas that have not done so already, and then wait for the mandatory line drawing in 2032 after the Census. American politics is a dance that never ends.
Recovery after a political crash out can be painful, but it’s best undertaken with clear eyes about what ails the GOP body politic. Anyone with a quick remedy or a single villain isn’t comprehending the scale of the rebuke. It isn’t as bad as 2008’s, but that could follow if another Great Recession looms.
The only certainty for President Trump seems to be: Win the battle with Iran and do so quickly and in such a fashion that there are no doubters about who won and how. The Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait must be obviously open to all traffic passing through them unmolested by the remnants of the Iranian terrorist regime. No more ill-conceived MOUs.
President Trump is the only one who matters on the decision about whether or not to win the battle with Iran and win it quickly. If the new Democratic majorities to be seated in January arrive before the battle is over, they will do their best to interfere with President Trump’s constitutional authority as Commander-in-Chief.
So even as he helps his party stand back up, he should pursue the conflict to success. And Republicans smarting from Tuesday night’s beatdown should keep in mind that if you have to choose between running the Congress and having the Presidency, the latter is by far the better choice.
Hugh Hewitt is a Fox News contributor and host of "The Hugh Hewitt Show" heard weekday afternoons from 3 PM to 6 PM ET on the Salem Radio Network, and simulcast on Salem News Channel. Hugh drives Americans home on the East Coast and to lunch on the West Coast on over 400 affiliates nationwide, and on all the streaming platforms where SNC can be seen. He is a frequent guest on the Fox News Channel’s news roundtable, hosted by Bret Baier weekdays at 6pm ET. A son of Ohio and a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School, Hewitt has been a Professor of Law at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law since 1996 where he teaches Constitutional Law. Hewitt launched his eponymous radio show from Los Angeles in 1990. Hewitt has frequently appeared on every major national news television network, hosted television shows for PBS and MSNBC, written for every major American paper, has authored a dozen books and moderated a score of Republican candidate debates, most recently the November 2023 Republican presidential debate in Miami and four Republican presidential debates in the 2015-16 cycle. Hewitt focuses his radio show and his column on the Constitution, national security, American politics and the Cleveland Browns and Guardians. Hewitt has interviewed tens of thousands of guests from Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump over his 40 years in broadcasting. This column previews the lead story that will drive his radio/ TV show today.